Health Care for profit or not for profit should we change the rules?
I was reading a post from the "Wonk Room" that had some interesting statistics that got me thinking. Here we are in August with the giant health care debate raging in the country. We have a Health Care Industry out of control, HMO's with profits through the roof and a thousand page bill to ad government into the mix. It you want to know how efficient the government part will be, look at the bill. The bill is so complex, even the President can't explain it and obviously doesn't understand it.
In my opinion; The Health Insurance Industry must be a not for profit industry and bound by the rules and regulations of that public sector, rules that are already in place. To make a profit on the health and well being of it's members goes beyond obscene and Machiavellian in every sense of the word. Today this industry makes it's profit by withholding health care, refusing to insure sick people, hireing banks of clerks to side tract and deny claims and dictate who can and can not have life saving procedures based on a formula. HMO's also manage non-profit hospitals and clinics. Not only do they insure for services, they supply the same services. This presents a giant conflict of interest.
The profits of the Health Insurance Industry has steadily risen and so have the salaries of the executives who run them. Take a look at the 5 top earners
Insurer: ............Company Profits: .........CEO Total Compensation:
UnitedHealth
Group ..................$2,977,000,000 ................$5,030,000
WellPoint ............$2,490,700,000 .................$4,070,000
Atena ..................$1,384,100,000 ................$38,860,000
Humana ................$647,000,000 ..................$2,390,000
Cigna .....................$292,000,000 ................$30,016,000
(Data source http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2009/08/05/are-health-insurers-making-too-much-money/)
The question I want to ask is: How many more people could have insurance if they were run as non-profits? I did some very rudimentary math and came up with the following data just using the table above and the Health Insurance Industry figure that the average costs to the industry is $8,160 to per person. I further gave the executives a generous non-profit salary of $654,000 per year.
Here are the results: 964,203 additional people could be insured. And that's just the 5 top companies and their CEO's. How many more policies could be gleaned from the entire industry?
As a non-profit these additional policies could be "scholarship" or "hardship" policies that are given to people and families when they can not afford COBRA, or earn too little to purchase a policy and earn too much to fall under Medicaid.
In my opinion; The Health Insurance Industry must be a not for profit industry and bound by the rules and regulations of that public sector, rules that are already in place. To make a profit on the health and well being of it's members goes beyond obscene and Machiavellian in every sense of the word. Today this industry makes it's profit by withholding health care, refusing to insure sick people, hireing banks of clerks to side tract and deny claims and dictate who can and can not have life saving procedures based on a formula. HMO's also manage non-profit hospitals and clinics. Not only do they insure for services, they supply the same services. This presents a giant conflict of interest.
The profits of the Health Insurance Industry has steadily risen and so have the salaries of the executives who run them. Take a look at the 5 top earners
Insurer: ............Company Profits: .........CEO Total Compensation:
UnitedHealth
Group ..................$2,977,000,000 ................$5,030,000
WellPoint ............$2,490,700,000 .................$4,070,000
Atena ..................$1,384,100,000 ................$38,860,000
Humana ................$647,000,000 ..................$2,390,000
Cigna .....................$292,000,000 ................$30,016,000
(Data source http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2009/08/05/are-health-insurers-making-too-much-money/)
The question I want to ask is: How many more people could have insurance if they were run as non-profits? I did some very rudimentary math and came up with the following data just using the table above and the Health Insurance Industry figure that the average costs to the industry is $8,160 to per person. I further gave the executives a generous non-profit salary of $654,000 per year.
Here are the results: 964,203 additional people could be insured. And that's just the 5 top companies and their CEO's. How many more policies could be gleaned from the entire industry?
As a non-profit these additional policies could be "scholarship" or "hardship" policies that are given to people and families when they can not afford COBRA, or earn too little to purchase a policy and earn too much to fall under Medicaid.
posted by Hollis Martin at 6:21 AM
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